Windows 7 Release Candidate is available for download. Feel free to grab it from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

Brandon LeBlanc announced the availability of Windows Vista SP2 on the official Windows Blog:

Today we are announcing the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) of Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. SP2 represents the latest step in Microsoft’s commitment to continuous improvement. It includes all updates that have been delivered since SP1, as well as support for new types of hardware and emerging hardware standards. 

As we have mentioned before, here are some of the key benefits of Windows Vista SP2:

• Windows Search 4.0 for faster and improved relevancy in searches
• Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack supporting the most recent specification for Bluetooth Technology
• Ability to record data on to Blu-Ray media natively in Windows Vista
• Adds Windows Connect Now (WCN) to simplify Wi-Fi Configuration
• Windows Vista SP2 enables the exFAT file system to support UTC timestamps, which allows correct file synchronization across time zones.

And since it comes with a single installer for both Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, SP2 will be easy for IT Pros to manage, deploy, and support. For a complete overview of the changes introduced in SP2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, check out thenotable changes document on TechNet.

Business customers with Windows Vista will find that the transition from Windows Vista to Windows 7 will be significantly more straightforward due to the high degree of compatibility between Windows Vista and Windows 7. If your Windows Vista SP1 deployment is already underway we recommend you continue with SP1 as planned. Then you can deploy SP2 using your systems management infrastructure.  If you are in the early stages of deployment or still planning Windows Vista deployment our best advice is that you plan on testing and deploying Windows Vista SP2. For more, I suggest reading this blog post from Gavriella Schuster in regards to guidance on Windows deployments.

We expect Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 SP2 to be publicly available in Q2 2009.

As a quick reminder, Windows Vista SP1 Service Pack Blocker Tool is being removed today, as we announced back in January. For customers who previously had the blocker tool in place, Windows Vista SP1 will now be offered to them via Windows Update.

REDMOND, Wash. — April 28, 2009 — As part of its efforts to continually improve its products and make them more useful for customers, Microsoft periodically releases update packages known as “service packs.” Service packs deliver product updates and selected enhancements, without the complete overhaul of releasing a new version.

Today the availability of Service Pack 2 (SP2) for the 2007 Microsoft Office system was announced. The service pack includes major performance enhancements for Office applications, most notably Microsoft Office Outlook, as well as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. One big benefit is SP2’s boost to interoperability — with this release, Office supports additional built-in file formats such as PDF and ODF.

PressPass talked with Jane Liles, group program manager, Office Sustained Engineering, to discuss what customers can expect from Service Pack 2, how the improvements will provide added value, and how Microsoft is increasing its commitment to interoperability.

PressPass: Why should someone download this service pack for Office 2007?

Liles: This release builds on customer feedback and offers enhanced stability for Outlook, calendaring reliability, and many more improvements to applications that run on both PCs and servers. Microsoft has also been working hard to build interoperability into its products across the board, and so Office now also includes additional file-format support, which makes it much easier for customers to work with different file formats in the same application.

PressPass: What are the main improvements that customers will notice with SP2?

Liles: Users should notice the improved performance and stability of Outlook, better charting functionality in Excel, and more control over the appearance of SmartArt graphics.

On the server side, IT professionals will notice several enhancements to the security and performance of SharePoint Server 2007, including support for read-only content databases, improvements to forms-based authentication, and an STSADM command-line utility that enables administrators to scan sites that use the variations feature for errors. SharePoint Server will also feature better support for newer versions of the Firefox browser.

Also, having a wider array of file-format choices should really benefit customers. With SP2, Office 2007 now has built-in support for Open XML, ODF and PDF, along with the dozen or so other formats that were already supported in Office 2007.

PressPass: Why did Microsoft put so much effort into supporting those other formats?

Liles: Our customers have complex needs that no single vendor can address, so we need to be collaborative with the rest of the industry and make our products as interoperable as possible. At Microsoft, our approach includes open protocols, APIs, published documentation about our implementation of document-format standards, and built-in support for the widest set of document formats in the industry. This approach allows customers to choose the best document format for the job at hand.

In addition to the support for additional file formats, SP2 also includes the Open XML Format External File Converter. This allows developers to make any third-party document format a first-class citizen in Office. This means Office will support most government-preferred formats, and can easily be made to support any others that come along.

PressPass: There has been a beta of SP2 available for a while now. What kind of feedback did you get from beta customers?

Liles: Well, first I should call out that the beta was invaluable in helping us produce this service pack. Betas give us a chance to test our engineering work with real customers to ensure we’re hitting the mark. This was the largest beta we’ve done to date for an Office service pack, with thousands of beta testers from over 60 countries spanning a variety of company sizes. So the beta gave us a unique opportunity to ensure that our changes address real customer needs, especially for key products like Outlook. Our beta testers also provided us with some excellent feedback that resulted in real improvements to the service pack code and documentation.

PressPass: People spend a lot of time with Outlook specifically. What have you done to improve that experience?

Liles: Outlook is where a large percentage of our users spend the majority of their work time. It’s critical that the application provide the experience that they expect and need to get their work done. Outlook 2007 SP2 is 26 percent faster than its predecessor on a set of common e-mail tasks and is even faster, 35 percent, with larger mailboxes. Users will experience considerable responsiveness and speed improvements on common, day-to-day operations like launching, synchronizing and searching. We were excited to be able to act on as much of the customer feedback as we did.

PressPass: Where can customers get the SP2 and additional information?

Liles: Customers can download SP2 right away. In addition, Microsoft will release SP2 via Microsoft Update’s automatic update mechanism no sooner than three months from now, and with at least 30 days notice, which aligns with our prior established policy.

BERLIN, April 20, 2009 - HP today unveiled new solutions within its Adaptive Infrastructure (AI) portfolio that fundamentally change the way technology is used to deliver business services, while also reducing overall infrastructure costs and data center complexity.⁽¹⁾

HP BladeSystem Matrix (Matrix) is the industry’s first converged software, server, storage and networking platform that automates service delivery for the data center. HP Matrix Orchestration Environment provides a unified management interface to rapidly design, deploy and optimize the application infrastructure.

Together, these offerings create an integrated pool of resources that operate in both physical and virtual environments, creating the first truly business-ready infrastructure.

This powerful combination dramatically simplifies complex infrastructure tasks such as disaster recovery, capacity planning, consolidation and provisioning. As a result, companies can save nearly 80 percent in operational costs and realize payback in as little as eight months, with a potential return on investment in three years of over 300 percent.⁽²⁾

Through a self-service portal, Matrix provides chief information officers with a push button approach to accelerating the provisioning of the infrastructure for applications. It also dynamically assigns resources to meet the needs of the business in minutes versus weeks or months. Resources are assigned to requests as needed, and then returned to the pool once the service requirements are completed, optimizing utilization of the infrastructure.

HP has introduced several additional offerings that expand the flexibility of a business-ready infrastructure including: HP LeftHand P4000 SAN solutions, HP StorageWorks SB40c with P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance Software bundle, HP StorageWorks 600 Modular Disk System and HP Insight Capacity Advisor Virtualization Services.

“Increasingly, customers are looking for data center solutions with Adaptive Infrastructure properties such as superior economics, application-based cost tracking, and true dynamic capacity management,” said Mark Potter, senior vice president, Infrastructure Software and Blades, HP. “Matrix is a game-changing, all-in-one technology that allows the infrastructure to run at the pace of the business.”

Changing the economics, simplicity and flexibility of IT

HP BladeSystem Matrix is the industry’s first all-in-one software, server, storage and networking platform that allows customers to get the benefits of a converged system without a “rip and replace” strategy for all their existing data center investments.

Benefits such as four-to-one network equipment consolidation and a 45 percent reduction in server hardware and software costs provide early return on investment.⁽¹⁾

Based on the HP BladeSystem portfolio, Matrix offers customers the benefit of the platform’s sophisticated power management. IT can use one-third less energy through HP Thermal Logic Technology and accurately capture historical power usage.⁽³⁾ Customers can reclaim up to 50 percent of previously over-provisioned data center circuit capacity.⁽³⁾

In addition, the automated workflow engine with template-based provisioning increases productivity and decreases errors by removing manual steps and facilitating coordination between technology teams, lowering service delivery time from days to minutes.

Matrix is available through HP Factory Express, the company’s customization and integration service, with on-site implementation services and project management for a seamless deployment. As business needs grow, a single Matrix environment can easily be expanded to accommodate up to 1,000 systems.

Converge everything

Matrix comes with HP’s new Virtual Connect 8Gb Fibre Channel and Flex-10 Ethernet modules. Virtual Connect Flex-10 is the industry’s first interconnect technology that can allocate the bandwidth of a 10-Gb Ethernet network port across four network interface card (NIC) connections, eliminating additional network equipment and costs. Customers deploying virtual machines and using HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 can realize savings of up to 55 percent in network equipment costs.⁽⁴⁾

HP is extending the Virtual Connect offering with several updates:

• The Virtual Connect multi-enclosure stacking feature connects four enclosures into one VC domain, reducing the number of Ethernet cables to two per rack.
• HP Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager v1.30, part of the HP Matrix Orchestration Environment, simplifies LAN and SAN connectivity management across hundreds of HP BladeSystem enclosures. The software provides a central console, enabling group-based configuration management, plus rapid assignment, movement and failover of server-to-network connections for up to 200 virtual connect domains.

HP defines the future of storage: industry standard storage

With its latest storage offerings, HP is enabling customers to harness excess capacity from any vendor, anywhere in the network, and turn it into a single pool of shared storage. Additionally, HP is delivering multiple tiers of storage on a standard platform.

• The new HP LeftHand P4000 SAN solutions offer a scale-out architecture that provides data replication and automatically balances data volumes across all storage resources. Administrators can cost-effectively deploy shared storage within virtual environments while using existing infrastructures.
• The HP StorageWorks SB40c with P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance Software bundle is the industry’s first highly available shared storage solution within a virtualized blade server infrastructure.⁽⁵⁾ The solution delivers a scalable storage SAN that can be deployed within the HP BladeSystem. It can be expanded across multiple blade enclosures to meet high-growth storage needs.
• The HP StorageWorks 600 Modular Disk System (MDS600) provides direct-attach storage (DAS) for HP BladeSystem. MDS600 enables customers to allocate any number of drives to any server at 70 percent lower cost and 230 percent more density than traditional DAS.⁽¹⁾ Storage can be allocated as needed to each blade server, with the flexibility to reconfigure quickly and easily without moving cables.

Virtualization enhanced with leading combination of services and software

HP Insight Capacity Advisor Virtualization Services help customers assess, plan and design their ideal virtual environment. This service combines years of HP virtualization expertise with HP Insight Capacity Advisor consolidation software to identify the best approach for reducing the risk of downtime, increasing responsiveness and helping maximize the return on investment of a virtualized deployment.

More information on today’s news is available in an online press kit athttp://www.hp.com/go/ConvergeEverything.

BERLIN, April 20, 2009 - HP today announced new shared storage solutions that improve business reliability and reduce costs by simplifying server virtualization deployments.

Customers deploying virtual environments often overlook the storage requirements needed to match their redesigned infrastructure. This can lead to lower levels of data availability and poor utilization of storage assets. In addition, customers frequently do not have the storage space needed to scale as business demands increase, which can impact application performance.

The new HP LeftHand P4000 SAN solutions offer a scale-out architecture that provides data replication and automatically balances data volumes across all storage resources. Furthermore, to ensure that application requirements are met, administrators can cost-effectively deploy shared storage within virtual server environments while using existing physical and virtual technology infrastructures.

HP also announced the industry’s first highly available shared storage solution within a virtualized blade server infrastructure.⁽¹⁾ The new HP StorageWorks SB40c with P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance Software bundle delivers a scalable storage area network (SAN). This SAN can be deployed within the HP BladeSystem infrastructure and expanded across multiple blade enclosures to meet high growth storage needs.

“Customers need agile, integrated storage solutions to realize the full potential of virtualization,” said Stephan Schmitt, vice president of marketing, StorageWorks Division, HP. “These new solutions offer the high data availability and utilization customers require. Based on industry-standard platforms, this approach also enables customers to scale their environments without interruption as their businesses grow.”

Enhanced server virtualization with virtualized storage

The iSCSI SAN market is expected to increase at a 25 percent compounded annual growth rate through 2013.⁽²⁾ Server virtualization is a key driver of this growth. To address this, the HP LeftHand P4000 SAN solutions allow customers to ensure business-critical data is always available while reducing the costs of managing and expanding their storage infrastructures.

HP LeftHand SAN solutions:

• Increase capacity utilization by approximately 33 percent to maximize storage investments;⁽³⁾
• Allow customers to purchase capacity as business demands grow, easily increasing both capacity and performance without disruptions to business operations;
• Lower server and storage network deployment costs by leveraging traditional Ethernet networks and supporting a full range of HP ProCurve networking switches; and
• Include targeted solutions for multi-site, virtual server and new SAN deployments for small to midsize customers and remote locations.

The HP StorageWorks SB40c with P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance Software bundle allows customers to build an iSCSI SAN within a blade infrastructure to meet their shared storage needs. As a result, customers can:

• Lower costs by using existing infrastructure while reducing power and cooling requirements;
• Scale storage beyond a single enclosure, meeting the most demanding data requirements and maintaining availability during unexpected failures;
• Reduce complexity by consolidating management of all P4000 SAN solutions through a single user interface; and
• Integrate fault management with HP Systems Insight Manager for common management of servers and storage within existing operational processes.

VMware integration simplifies management

The HP LeftHand P4000 SAN Solutions and VSA software leverage VMware’s vStorage functionality, integrate with VMware Site Recovery Manager and are VMware Ready™ Certified. As a result, customers benefit from simplified management and availability of virtual infrastructures.

“VMware virtualization provides immediate relief to customers needing to control IT costs while meeting demand for increased business agility,” said Parag Patel, vice president, Alliances, VMware. “By combining the VMware platform with either the HP LeftHand P4000 SAN or VSA, we’re delivering customers a solution that enables increased storage requirements and scalability with no downtime – it’s an ideal combination for customers.”

Supporting channel partners worldwide

HP also introduced a channel registration program that allows HP partners to grow their businesses and better support customers. The program is available through HP’s Value Special Pricing offered to partners who have a specific sales opportunity that includes HP LeftHand solutions. This offer is available worldwide and may vary by region. Resellers can contact their local HP representative for details.

More information on HP LeftHand P4000 SAN solutions is available at www.hp.com/go/lefthandsans.

Pricing and availability

HP LeftHand P4000 SAN solutions are available immediately through HP and channel partners worldwide. Pricing varies by region.

HP will demonstrate its solutions at its Technology@Work user conference, which runs April 21-23 in Berlin, Germany.

MS Security Bulletin for this month:

Good people at Microsoft Press are offering a free e-book:

Windows® Small Business Server 2008 Administrator’s Companion

Feel free to grab it on this page after registration on the site:

http://csna01.libredigital.com/?urws8un4p7

LAS VEGAS, April 20 — (NAB Show Booth No. SL12809) – Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) today expanded its enterprise family of hard drives to include the next-generation 2 TB capacity, the largest and only 2 TB enterprise-class hard drive shipping today. Combining industry-leading 64 MB cache, dual processors, and increased areal density, WD RE4-GP hard drives yield twice the processing power resulting in as much as 25 percent performance improvement over the previous generation.

WD’s GreenPower(TM) technology platform is the first 3.5-inch hard drive platform designed with power savings as the primary attribute. These drives reduce average drive power consumption by up to 50 percent over currently available competitors’ drives and are ultra-cool and quiet, all while delivering solid performance.

The new WD RE4-GP 2 TB hard drive provides enterprise-class reliability for storage-hungry applications, such as cloud-computing infrastructure, large-scale data centers, data archive and tape replacement systems, commercial video surveillance and digital video editing houses, with an energy- and money-saving solution that combats the challenges facing the enterprise IT sector — limited available drive slots, maximum capacity required, and limited power and budget. Addressing the growing high-capacity enterprise market, WD RE4-GP 2 TB drives are reliability-rated at 1.2 million hours MTBF (mean time before failure) in high duty cycle environments.

Mission-critical video and audio content producers typically require greater system performance and capacity needs than most other applications. Reliable video servers, in particular, are crucial for time-critical data retrieval, distribution, repurposing, and archiving. Like thousands of other professionals and consumers storing photos, files and music, video professionals must manage and maintain raw video files (or any files).

“Every data center in operation worldwide contributes to CO2 emissions, and storage systems are at the core of these data centers,” said John Rydning, IDC’s research director for hard disk drives. “Many storage applications are a great fit for high-capacity, low power-consuming disk drives like the WD RE4-GP 2 TB that help to reduce power consumption and positively impact the environment.”

WD(R) is making it possible for energy-conscious enterprise customers to build servers and storage subsystems with higher capacities, consistent performance, and assured reliability, all while promoting energy conservation.

“Energy efficiency is a primary concern for our customers who continue to look for ways to reduce their carbon footprint without compromising reliability or performance,” said Tom McDorman, vice president and general manager of WD’s enterprise storage solutions business unit. “WD’s RE-GP drives enable them to meet their customer’s system requirements for storage capacity, reliability, performance and cost by integrating an enterprise-class drive that simply consumes less power than traditional hard drives.”

Exclusive Intelligent Drive Technology

WD RE4-GP hard drives with GreenPower technology deliver exceptional power conservation, run ultra-cool and quiet, while providing solid performance. Following are several technologies responsible for the performance enhancements:

Faster - 64 MB cache, dual processors, and increased areal density yield twice the processing power resulting in as much as a 25 percent performance improvement over the previous generation.

Greener - Improvements in our power-conserving technologies – IntelliSeek(TM), IntelliPark(TM), and IntelliPower(TM) — deliver up to an average 25 percent reduction in power consumption over our previous generation of WD RE-GP drive.

Improved Rotary Vibration Tolerance - Advanced mechanical and servo control optimization along with system characterization and validation enable rock solid performance under extreme vibration conditions, with negligible impact to performance, substantially more robust than the previous generation, making this drive ideal for the most industrial IT applications

Active Power Management - WD drives with GreenPower technology monitor work load and automatically invoke idle mode whenever possible to further reduce unnecessary power consumption by up to an additional 40 percent. Drive recovery time from idle mode is less than one second, providing seamless power management between the drive and the host controller.

StableTrac(TM) - Secures the motor shaft at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking, during read and write operations.

RAID-specific Time-limited Error Recovery (TLER) - Pioneered by WD, this feature prevents drive fallout caused by the extended hard drive error-recovery processes common to desktop drives.

Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward (RAFF(TM)) - This second generation WD RE-GP model increased rotational frequencies up to 1500 Hz, therefore optimizing operation and performance when the drives are used in vibration-prone multi-drive systems such as rack mounted servers or in systems deployed at industrial type locations.

Availability and Pricing

The WD RE4-GP 2 TB hard drive (model WD2002FYPS) is available from select e-tailers and distributors. MSRP is$329.00 (U.S.). The WD RE4-GP 2 TB will also be shown by WD partners AMCC (booth number SL13007) and Promise (booth number SL12008) at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, NV. More information about WD RE4-GP enterprise drives may be found on the company’s Web site at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=670.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. April 20, 2009 Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) and Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) announced today they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun’s cash and debt.

“We expect this acquisition to be accretive to Oracle’s earnings by at least 15 cents on a non-GAAP basis in the first full year after closing. We estimate that the acquired business will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle’s non-GAAP operating profit in the first year, increasing to over $2 billion in the second year. This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined,” said Oracle President Safra Catz.

“The acquisition of Sun transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. “Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system - applications to disk - where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves. Our customers benefit as their systems integration costs go down while system performance, reliability and security go up.”

There are substantial long-term strategic customer advantages to Oracle owning two key Sun software assets: Java and Solaris. Java is one of the computer industry’s best-known brands and most widely deployed technologies, and it is the most important software Oracle has ever acquired. Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle’s fastest growing business, is built on top of Sun’s Java language and software. Oracle can now ensure continued innovation and investment in Java technology for the benefit of customers and the Java community.

The Sun Solaris operating system is the leading platform for the Oracle database, Oracle’s largest business, and has been for a long time. With the acquisition of Sun, Oracle can optimize the Oracle database for some of the unique, high-end features of Solaris. Oracle is as committed as ever to Linux and other open platforms and will continue to support and enhance our strong industry partnerships.

“Oracle and Sun have been industry pioneers and close partners for more than 20 years,” said Sun Chairman Scott McNealy. “This combination is a natural evolution of our relationship and will be an industry-defining event.”

“This is a fantastic day for Sun’s customers, developers, partners and employees across the globe, joining forces with the global leader in enterprise software to drive innovation and value across every aspect of the technology marketplace,” said Jonathan Schwartz, Sun’s CEO, “From the Java platform touching nearly every business system on earth, powering billions of consumers on mobile handsets and consumer electronics, to the convergence of storage, networking and computing driven by the Solaris operating system and Sun’s SPARC and x64 systems. Together with Oracle, we’ll drive the innovation pipeline to create compelling value to our customer base and the marketplace.”

“Sun is a pioneer in enterprise computing, and this combination recognizes the innovation and customer success the company has achieved. Our largest customers have been asking us to step up to a broader role to reduce complexity, risk and cost by delivering a highly optimized stack based on standards,” said Oracle President Charles Phillips. “This transaction will preserve and enhance investments made by our customers, while we continue to work with our partners to provide customers with choice.”

The Board of Directors of Sun Microsystems has unanimously approved the transaction. It is anticipated to close this summer, subject to Sun stockholder approval, certain regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

There will be a conference call today to discuss the transaction at 5:30 a.m. Pacific time. Investors can listen to the conference call by dialing (719) 234-7870, passcode 923645. A replay will be available for 24 hours after the call ends at (719) 884-8882, passcode: 923645. A live audio webcast of the call will be made available at www.oracle.com/investor and a replay will be available for seven days after the call ends.

SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is now available. 

There is a number of versions available from the following page:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?di...f9dc19